In the business of raising hogs, one of the operations involves the placement of the sow in a farrowing crate for birthing and raising the piglets during their initial phase of life until they can be weaned and moved away from the sow to continue the cycle.
Farrowing crates therefore have been designed and built for many years to contain the sow in a central elongate area of the farrowing crate and to contain the piglets in two side areas where they can move at will and access the sow when lying for feeding.
The sow also must be able to stand and feed while in the farrowing crate so the feeder is generally placed at the forward end of the farrowing crate to allow the sow to take feed at will to maintain body weight for subsequent procedures.
Such farrowing crates are manufactured at minimum dimensions so as to maximize the number of sows contained in a particular area. There is pressure therefore to maintain the length of the crate as short as possible in new crates manufactured at this time and in addition there are existing crates which have been manufactured previously at a predetermined size.
In the meantime, improved breeding of the animals has led to an increase in size so that they sows tend to be bigger and longer than previous times when the dimensions of the crate were developed.
It is common for the sows in a gestation stall to be fed simply by a drop tube which deposits a measured quantity of feed onto the floor of the stall. An example of an arrangement of the type is shown in as fully described and claimed in United States application filed Apr. 14, 2003, Ser. No: 10/412,665 entitled “PEN AND ATTACHED FEEDING APPARATUS FOR AN ANIMAL”, and in corresponding Canadian application filed Mar. 12, 2004, Ser. No: 2,460,880. The deposit of feed onto the floor in this manner is possible using a drop tube which drops substantially all of the feed simultaneously onto the floor in a measured quantity. However this system tends for feed to be wasted and requires control of the measurement of the quantities.
An alternative arrangement utilises a feeder of the type comprising a hopper which drops feed into a trough with the amount of feed in the trough being controlled by the repose angle of the feed so only a certain quantity of the feed from the hopper discharges into trough at any one time until further feed is removed allowing the repose angle to change and further feed to fall. Commonly feeders of this type are mounted on the front gate where the hopper is carried on the front gate and the trough is formed as a bowl with a peripheral lip and a bottom wall extending downwardly from the peripheral lip to catch the feed. The trough is carried on the front gate at a height above the floor and projects into the crate by a distance of the order of 12 inches so as to provide a trough of a sufficient size that the animal can reach into the trough for taking feed from the base of the trough. As the hopper and the trough are on the inside of the gate, this arrangement takes up space within the crate and locates the lip of the trough approximately one foot from the gate within the crate so that it crowds the animal rearwardly and reduces the space available for the animal to lie. The trough therefore can be a discomfort to the animal, particularly where the animal is relatively large and of course such discomfort is to be avoided.